For Mississippi State University graduate Alijah Jones, the road to a Fulbright Scholarship began in the stillness of the pandemic. Feeling a lack of connection, Jones said he “indulged” in internet browsing, happening upon a YouTube video––“Dinner with my Italian Host Family.” Stepping outside the loneliness of isolation, he found not just a glimpse into another culture, but a spark that would one day take him across the world.

Ryan P. Semmes, historian and Mississippi State Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library research director examines the far-reaching implications of Reconstruction in his first book “Exporting Reconstruction: Ulysses S. Grant and a New Empire of Liberty.” The 2024 University of South Carolina Press publication is part of the organization’s “Reconstruction Reconsidered” series.

Mississippi State University’s newly renamed Department of Communication, Media and Theatre is now nationally accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications for its undergraduate programs in broadcast and digital journalism, public relations and print and digital journalism.